Joshua — Complete eBook

“Why hast thou done this thing to thyself and
to me? For a short time ago I learned what woman’s
love is, and that I was mistaken when I believed Miriam
shared the ardor of my heart. Besides, during
the march with fetters on my feet, in the heaviest
misfortune, I vowed to devote all the strength and
energy of soul and body to the welfare of our people.
Nor shall the love of woman turn me from the great
duty I have taken upon myself. As for thy wife,
I shall treat her as a stranger unless, as a prophetess,
she summons me to announce a new message from the Lord.”

With these words he held out his hand to his companion
and, as Hur grasped it, loud voices were heard from
the fighting-men, for messengers were climbing the
mountain, who, shouting and beckoning, pointed to the
vast cloud of dust that preceded the march of the tribes.

CHAPTER XXV.

The Hebrews came nearer and nearer, and many of the
young combatants hastened to meet them. These
were not the joyous bands, who had joined triumphantly
in Miriam’s song of praise, no, they tottered
toward the mountain slowly, with drooping heads.
They were obliged to scale the pass from the steeper
side, and how the bearers sighed; how piteously the
women and children wailed, how fiercely the drivers
swore as they urged the beasts of burden up the narrow,
rugged path; how hoarsely sounded the voices of the
half fainting men as they braced their shoulders against
the carts to aid the beasts of burden.

These thousands who, but a few short days before,
had so gratefully felt the saving mercy of the Lord,
seemed to Joshua, who stood watching their approach,
like a defeated army.

But the path they had followed from their last encampment,
the harbor by the Red Sea, was rugged, arid, and to
them, who had grown up among the fruitful plains of
Lower Egypt, toilsome and full of terror.

It had led through the midst of the bare rocky landscape,
and their eyes, accustomed to distant horizons and
luxuriant green foliage, met narrow boundaries and
a barren wilderness.

Since passing through the Gate of Baba, they had beheld
on their way through the valley of the same name and
their subsequent pilgrimage through the wilderness
of Sin, nothing save valleys with steep precipices
on either side. A lofty mountain of the hue of
death had towered, black and terrible, above the reddish-brown
slopes, which seemed to the wanderers like the work
of human hands, for the strata of stones rose at regular
intervals. One might have supposed that the giant
builders whose hands had toiled here in the service
of the Sculptor of the world had been summoned away
ere they had completed the task, which in this wilderness
had no searching eye to fear and seemed destined for
the service of no living creature. Grey and brown
granite cliffs and ridges rose on both sides of the
path, and in the sand which covered it lay heaps of